Apple Jealous of Google?

“The big news in the past year has been the explosion of Google Android handsets and this means our competitors are responding. Because they are not responding with innovation, they’re responding with lawsuits. We have not done anything wrong and these lawsuits are just inspired by our success” – Eric Schmidt, 2011

HTC, the popular manufacturer for the Android-based smartphones is guilty of infringing Apple’s patent. Earlier in March 20th, Apple filed lawsuits against the Taiwanese smartphone company, HTC, for infringing more than 20 Apple’s proprietary inventions from the user interface of an iPhone to its hardware and architecture.

Android has been a huge competitor to Apple iPhone. Though, in my opinion, it has never exactly been the ‘iPhone-Killer’; smartphones like HTC Incredible S has indeed shaken some grounds in the mobile phone industry. Android phone has become a popular alternative to iPhone. In fact some of my friends in the campus have asked me way to many times to do a comparison review on these two smartphone platforms.

Unlike iPhone, Android is an OS works similarly like Windows on the PC world. It is an OS that is available on a numerous phones manufactured by various companies. iPhone on the other hand is solely engineered by the one and only company, Apple.

The Google’s Chairman has said that his company would help HTC in fighting these lawsuits from Apple. The CEO of Apple however has a different way of viewing the lawsuit:

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours” – Steve Jobs, 2011

Whether these lawsuits rise from lack of innovation or jealousy, it can hardly be denied that Android is heavily inspired by Apple’s iOS. Take a look how Android used to look like back in 2007:

It is hard to believe that the Google’s Chairman (also the former CEO) Eric Schmidt was once a member in the Apple’s board of director. He was fired (or some say he resigned) due to the “conflict of interest”. This is what Android looks like today:

So… Is it Jealousy or Is it just too much from Google? What do you think? Is it right for Apple to file these lawsuits?